How we escaped death during #EndSARS saga — Babatunde

One of the Nigerian activists, Olanrewaju Babatunde, has narrated how he and some of his colleagues escaped death during the #EndSARS saga that claimed lives of some Nigerian youths in Lagos.

According to him, one of his friends, Temitope Ayodeji Abioye, was almost killed but escaped.

“Abioye has been known to me as a right activist and a Christian frontrunner in Ekiti Town and environs. We were both at protests during the End SARS saga but we narrowly escaped death. Due to his activities and protest against the Fulani Herdsmen, he would be put at greater risk which may be dangerous to his life and family, if he relocates back to Nigeria, because of his stand against right abuses by the Fulani Herdsmen; who have flocked in their numbers into his village and environs,” he stated.

On the 20th of October 2020, at least 46 unarmed protesters were shot dead,  22 sustained gunshot injuries and 11 were assaulted during end SARS protest by military officers.

SARS had been accused of several human rights violations, illegal “stop and searches,” illegal arrests and detentions, extrajudicial killings, sexual harassment of women and brutalising of young male Nigerians. The human rights abuses were documented in trending videos on social media.

In April 2020, Kofi Bartels, a 34-year-old radio journalist in Nigeria’s Rivers State, was filming three police officers from the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) beating another man when they and three of their colleagues turned their attention to him.

In a series of tweets, he described being beaten and arrested: “They took turns to slap, punch and kick me while I was struggling with a swollen knee. At least six officers, one at a time.”

Philomena Celestine, 25, has also seen SARS brutality up close. In 2018, she was travelling home from her university graduation ceremony with her family in Edo State, when their car was pulled over by SARS officers and her two brothers taken out.

“My four-year-old niece was in the vehicle but they cocked their guns at our car and drove my brothers into the bush where they harassed them for over 30 minutes, and accused them of being cybercriminals. They could see my graduation gown but that did not deter them. My sister was trembling and crying in fear,” Celestine recalled.

These accounts are just two of many that sparked protests against the unit across Nigeria. It has been accused of harassing and physically abusing thousands of civilians since it was created in 1992. The #EndSARS protests resulted in the Nigerian government announcing earlier this month that it would disband the unit.

But this is the fourth time in as many years that the government has promised to disband or reform the unit that citizens say has terrorised them for decades.

And the problem of police brutality goes beyond SARS, the protesters say.

According to Amnesty International, the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) is responsible for hundreds of extrajudicial executions, other unlawful killings and enforced disappearances each year.